


but this is the distance

by seeyaloki



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Grimmauld Place, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 19:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeyaloki/pseuds/seeyaloki
Summary: Fourteen years was a damn long time to build something new from scratch, to unknow and relearn someone, to at least try and erase all of the old and broken things from memory. And yet it seemed they were both still clinging to the remnants of their lives before.(Or, the road to being okay again is long and winding.)





	but this is the distance

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Vienna by The Fray, which you should consider giving a listen as you read this!

**I.**

Recovery, he discovered somewhere during the summer, the heat of Grimmauld Place an oppressive blanket around him, isn’t at all like a reflex. It doesn’t come naturally to a person. It’s not ‘fix one thing, fix everything’. To his dismay, the broken parts of yourself don’t mend themselves just because you need them to. Maybe it’s even more difficult when the pieces didn’t wither with the slow passing of time or simply because you stopped trying to hold them together, but were taken from you. Slowly, inch after inch, by creatures that thrived off of seeing you become a hollow shell of yourself. Sometimes he sat down in one of the darkest rooms in Grimmauld Place and tried to repair, everything, anything until the dawn crept up behind the torn curtains and he would give up until the next time he found the energy.

On these days, Remus didn’t dare come near him.

**II.**

The best thing about seeing Remus again in his old and barely stable cottage was that he had not, under no circumstances, pitied Sirius.

If he had, Sirius couldn’t tell. His face always kept the same stoic and wary expression, regarding him and his worn out bones like he was imagining his entire presence. His eyes lingered sometimes, not leeringly, not angrily, but like he was trying to retain the things about Sirius that hadn’t changed in Azkaban. Things like his eyes, and the structure of his hands, and his black hair and the way he runs those hands through that hair when it gets in those eyes. Those are things the dementors couldn’t take from him, everything else that was left was skin and bones and lost time pressed into one barely-there man, ragged and quiet. Sirius hadn’t noticed how quiet he’d been until he realized that he hardly recognized his own voice anymore.

James had said, so long ago now, that it’s extremely difficult to transform your body into something else, that it takes months and months and maybe even years but Sirius knew it was different now. Azkaban transformed him until he was barely a man, more like a shape, like a ghost trapped in a holding cell and he could barely feel, could barely see and hear. He’d barely existed in that prison, molded faster than he could blink into a less-than-human version of himself and Azkaban had made it seem _easy._

Losing himself was the only thing that happened quicker than lightning in that place.

Every time Remus pulled his eyes away again, he’d shake his head like he was trying to forget what he saw there in the image of Sirius. Even then, there was never any pity to find in his eyes, the entire time he stayed at the cottage with him. Sirius thought maybe it’s because Remus knew, always had, what it feels like to be pulled apart, flesh from bone, and to wake up from nightmare after nightmare and to never be able to be anything else than what he had been turned into but somehow, still not want people to feel sorry for who he is.

Pity is a loud and visible thing. And Remus had always tried to avoid feeling things he couldn’t hide.

**III.**

(The one exception was when they got the letter to relocate to Grimmauld Place. And there, surrounded by vile-looking portraits of Black ancestors that wanted him dead more than anything, with the shivers of a hitherto closed chapter he was foolish enough to believe he’d never have to return to crawling up his shoulders, Remus looked back at him in the dark and narrow hallway and there was something in his grey-greenish eyes like _i’m so sorry_.

But Sirius closed the door behind himself, shaking off the nerves and the dread, pretending he hadn’t noticed.)

**IV.**

“Figured I’d find you here.”

Remus’s voice was so overwhelmingly loud in the dark and empty room that it echoed a little.

“He’s left?”

The he in question was Kingsley Shacklebolt, sent no doubt by Dumbledore under the guise of keeping them updated but they all knew the reason he was there was to check if Sirius and Remus hadn’t broken down the house in an attempt to get rid of whatever custom Black darkness they could when no one was watching. Kingsley’s eyes had always been so knowing and when they rested on him from across the long table, he almost reminded him of a predator stalking its prey. (Or of a dementor, waiting to strike and take whatever was left of him.) Sirius had managed to keep it together for 25 minutes on the dot before excusing himself and all but running out of the room and up the stairs.

Remus didn’t answer but he stepped forward until he was shoulder to shoulder with Sirius, hands tucked into the pockets of his grey cardigan. In front of them, Regulus Black was staring back from the tapestry on the wall. It had taken him a while to muster up the courage to come into this room, the black burned circle where his face was supposed to be was just another reminder of things lost and had been. Even now the only face he could look at more than two minutes was Regulus. So much like him and yet the differences between them couldn’t have been more obvious. He’d been staring at it, as if somehow this tapestry could give him all the answers he’d been longing for. The when and how and most importantly the why. He’d always thought his brother was the one Black in the entire family that he actually knew. Regulus had never been a bad person before. Quiet and a little cold and so obviously Slytherin that Sirius was almost convinced that the silver and green ran in his blood. But even then, in truth, nothing had ever felt _wrong_ about Regulus. To Sirius he had always seemed so inexplicably young. Like the world was something he didn’t quite understand yet. But then it turned out it was a world he wanted to help destroy, and under the sleek Death Eater mask had been eyes so much like his that it almost felt like he’d been staring into his own. And Sirius had come home that night when he figured out whose eyes it were, broken two plates and had thrown himself into the shower, letting tears disappear amongst the cold water and he had forced himself to realize that maybe Regulus had always been someone he didn’t really know at all.

“I bloody hate this place,” Sirius said. His voice was hoarse. Remus was still the one who did all the talking. Mostly about his year at Hogwarts, about Harry and his friends. Never anything before that. Never the seemingly endless years they had spent missing from each other’s lives in everything but thoughts. Every once in a while he would mention James, but then Peter was somehow always part of the story and Remus would get this faraway look in his eyes, and Sirius had to remember that not one but two lies had unraveled in front of his eyes. That his dead friend was a murderer and the convicted murderer was not a murderer at all but his friend. Everything Remus had believed for years was twisted and turned inside out and Sirius had wished, even still, that he could’ve revealed the truth to him without throwing Remus’s life upside down and backwards and without taking everything he knew and replacing it with something else. “Fucking despise it.”

“I know you do.”

And he did, didn’t he? Years and years of listening to Sirius rant hours on end about this house and the darkness of it that he felt had been seeping into veins and James had understood, but it was Remus he had gone to, when he was terrified that it was a darkness that had been infested in his soul so deeply that it would never leave his body.

(It had come out to play, he knew, when the Thing happened and he felt for the first time in his life that maybe he was more like his family than he had realized.)

“Regulus hated it too. He was better about it, though. Knew which things to keep to himself.”

They’d fought about it once. Sirius sixteen and Regulus fourteen. He’d asked for a little support during a fight with his father, something about mass-extermination of any and all dark creatures and he had thought of Remus, scratched up and wrapped in bandages and so tired and so _so_ innocent. He’d looked at Regulus, arms spread wide in an unspoken _are you going to help me out at all_ but Regulus had just stared back with his cold eyes and turned around and out of the room. And then, cheek red with his father’s handprint he’d confronted his brother about it and Regulus had flipped his hair out his face and said _there are some fights you’re just going to lose, Sirius. And you need to accept it, for your own good._

Two days later he’d packed up his stuff and used the few Muggle coins he had to buy a bus ticket to the town where the Potter house was waiting for him. Regulus hadn’t even bothered asking him if he was ever coming back.

“Sometimes I-,” He took a deep breath. Remus was looking at him patiently, waiting for Sirius to find the right words to say this. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s why he did it. Join Voldemort. My parents never cared much for Death Eaters. What if he did it just to spite them.”

“That’s,” Remus frowned his eyebrows, looked back at the tapestry. “That’s one hell of a conclusion to make, Sirius.”

“I know. I know and it doesn’t justify anything, not ever but- he told me once, some fights you’re going to lose, Sirius. Maybe he just wanted to win.”

Remus stepped forward, letting his long fingers trail over the fabric and then towards the black patch where his name was the only thing left.

“He _was_ young. Foolish. Easily influenced. Especially by those Slytherins he hung out with. But, please, Sirius. I refuse to believe that it was ever that simple.”

It was hard grieving for someone who had become rotten to the core, who had turned into everything Sirius had been fighting against since he figured out how. Remus knew a little of what that must be like, he supposed.

“I guess I just.. It’s easier to believe that they turned him into this, rather than this was who he always was, and I just never saw.”

Remus let his hand drop from the wall and stepped back towards the door, not looking back, avoiding Sirius’s eyes.

“I know,” He said. And he sounded so sad in that moment, that whatever was left of his old and worn out heart broke a little further in Sirius’s chest. “I know it is. But some people do monstrous things, Sirius. And it’s a good thing, that you can’t begin to understand why.”

 _Did you hate me, really?_ He wanted to yell after Remus as his footsteps faded away down the stairs. _Did you wish you had never loved me?_ But Sirius just turned back to the tapestry, and the faded fabric made Regulus look so much older than he actually was.

He already knew the answer to that.

**V.**

The first time Remus kissed him, it was late at night and the house creaked and they couldn’t sleep because they both had nightmares of very different things and it was soft and wonderful and it lasted for three seconds before Sirius pulled away and ran.

He left Remus standing in the kitchen with his hands still hovering in the air from where they were on his face and he walked up the stairs wishing he was brave enough to turn back.

He was never the talker, not ever before and certainly not now and he couldn’t find the words to say _I’m sorry but they took this from me, because with you I was truly happy and I loved you always even when I realized you must hate me and they took and took and took everything away and I don’t fucking know how to take it back_ and he doesn’t know how to show it either. He was not going to put the broken pieces on display for Remus to see because he wasn’t sure that he deserved for someone to try and fix them.

Before he knew it, he found himself standing in the doorway of his old bedroom. He hadn’t come near it so far, maybe out of fear that his mother had burned it to ashes as well but when he pushed the door open wider, it looked exactly the way he left it all those years ago when he was throwing a bunch of clothes in his bag ready to take with him to the Potters. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why his parents wouldn’t have turned it into something else, something more functional, something more vile. A sentimental and hopeful part of him dared to think that maybe his family kept it like this because they didn’t want to erase the complete memory of him. (The realistic part knew that they hated him so much they probably didn’t even let Kreacher go near the place, afraid that his wrongness would rub off on them.) He wondered if Regulus had ever looked inside. If he ever thought _well bloody hell, Sirius. You’re really not coming back, are you?_ And Sirius regretted for the millionth time not telling him why he needed an escape, always thinking Regulus was still too young to properly understand but he should have sat him down and talked to him and told him one day I pray to the heavens you’ll understand why I cannot stay here. Maybe things would have been different then.

“Bloody hell, look at this mess.”

Remus was standing on the threshold, one hand on the doorway, hesitating like he was waiting for Sirius to invite him in. Like maybe he was invading his privacy, as if Sirius wouldn’t give him everything of himself if only he knew how.

“Never had much talent for cleaning.”

“Oh trust me, _that_ I know.”

He got this little crooked smile on his face then, like he was remembering something funny and warm and Sirius wanted to ask him what it was but before he could  get the words out, the smile faded and Remus sighed as his chin dropped to his chest.

“Sirius, listen-” He started.

“You don’t-”

“I should have asked.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I should have _asked._ ”

He stepped inside then and looked around curiously at everything scattered on his floor and the posters on his wall like maybe he was memorizing for the first time this whole new-old part of Sirius that he never met before. He wouldn’t have dared to invite Remus up here back when they were in school. The entire house was laced with silver and werewolves weren’t exactly something his parents were tolerant of. Nevermind that this house was something he was ashamed of, always had been, even long before Hogwarts, of the darkness of his family and he only ever wanted Remus to know goodness.

“I wanted to. Remus, I wanted to, it’s just- it’s been a really long time.”

“Well,” He said and he stepped closer and closer until the socked-clad tips of his toes were touching his. “Some things you just have to relearn, Sirius.”

The second time Remus kissed him, it was late at night and the house creaked and they were standing in the only room of this house he ever dared call his own and it was soft and wonderful and Sirius reached up for his shoulders and pulled him closer.

**VI.**

Late at night, Remus fell asleep next to him for the first time in fourteen years and when he woke up from a nightmare, Sirius pulled him closer and let his hands slip from his shoulders down down down until he reached a place he never thought he’d get to touch again and it was exhilarating and for a moment almost like they shared the same body and the same heart and his blood ran through Remus’s veins and it almost felt a little like being whole.

He slept better than he had in a decade.

**VII.**

When the Weasleys arrived, things became more difficult.

He didn’t like the noise. Their excited yelling, while a nice change from the quiet, reminded him of the haunting screams he woke up and fell asleep to in Azkaban. And then there was Molly, who looked at him so obviously and so penetratingly that he constantly felt like he had to apologize for something, for still _being_ here. Remus pulled him away into the hallway and told him she meant well, that she worried for Harry and that they had that in common but the selfish part of him wanted to shout back that it was his turn now, to care for this boy the most, that he never had the chance to do so to the fullest.

Remus cocked his head at him though, like he could tell what Sirius was thinking, probably could, and then this little angry spark inside him ignited and he pushed past Sirius and back to kitchen and all he left him with was a deep sigh and a somber shake of his head. Remus was so tired all the fucking time. He hid it well, but Sirius knew him and he carried the exhaustion so much differently than he did before the war, before everything that happened happened and it must have broken so many pieces of Remus, that just like Sirius, even now he was struggling to find one that still worked.

Fourteen years was a damn long time to build something new from scratch, to unknow and relearn someone, to at least try and erase all of the old and broken things from memory. And yet it seemed they were both still clinging to the remnants of their lives before. Like everything was left somewhere in the long stretch between 1971 and 1978, or in their tiny shoebox of an apartment in 1979, or in a warm hospital room in July 1980, surrounded by cries of a newborn, or hell, even in that rainy and horrible autumn of 1981 when everything that should never have happened, did. Bits and pieces of it all, gone, gone, gone but never forgotten and never to return.

He was an idiot to have thought this would ever become easy.

**VIII.**

The sun had gone down behind a blanket of dark clouds by the time he went to find Remus. He was sitting outside on the steps of the terras, feet on the grass and he was looking up at the sky where only a few stars had already found their place. His head cocked to the side a little when he heard the door creak as Sirius shut it behind him.

“When’s the full moon?” He asked.

“Five days from now.”

They’d never talked about Remus’s transformations until now. When they’d first moved back in, Sirius had offered his basement, and he’d offered Padfoot, but Remus had just smiled and said it wasn’t necessary. That the wolf was used to open spaces and solitude by now.

“Where do you go?”

He sighed again. “Sirius-”

“Remus, I’m just asking. I feel like, like all this time we’ve been saying a whole lot, but not anything that’s really on our minds. Just– please.”

Remus turned to look at him. His eyes looked wet in the moonlight. He patted the space beside him on the steps and Sirius sat down, a distance between them that was more than just physical.

“There is this town, in Ireland. Completely abandoned, surrounded by kilometers of forest. I came across it by accident when you were gone. I didn’t use it when I was teaching but..That’s where I go.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“Lonely?” Remus scoffed, turned to him with an incredulous look on his face. “I had twelve years to become used to loneliness, Sirius.”

Sirius looked away. A feeling of guilt crept up his throat. _Loneliness that you helped cause_ Remus didn’t say, but Sirius was sure there was a time he must have been thinking it.

“I tried to remember it, the moon cycle. From my cell I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was seventeen days from being full when– when James and Lily died. So I would count. It was one of the first things they erased from my memory. There were moments I couldn’t even remember I was an animagus.”

Remus puts his hand down on the wood between them. Sirius had the urge to cover it with his own but getting to touch this man was a privilege, and he wasn’t sure it was one he deserved right now.

“I really bloody hated you.”

“I understand that.” He said.

“No. No, you don’t,” Remus stood up, walking forward with his hand covering his eyes and forehead before stopping and turning around, pointing his index finger at him. “You don’t understand, Sirius. You can’t. I wanted you dead for what you did. No, I wanted you to suffer. At my hands. Until you could feel even an inkling of the pain you had caused me! God, I despised you. And the worst part is that when the truth came out, that hatred didn’t just go away, even though I wanted it to. I lost the few good things in my life all in one go. And you’re sitting here right now and I don’t _blame_ you anymore, Sirius. I don’t blame you for any of it. But that loss, the hurt of it.. It won’t just go away. I cannot promise you that it ever will.”

And there it all was. The thing that had been causing this electric current between, short wiring the parts of them they thought they had managed to retrieve through touches and kisses late at night. Sirius looked at Remus, and he realized maybe for the first time that they would never get to go back to even a little bit of what they were before. And he thought of Regulus and _some fights you’re just going to lose_ and Sirius and Remus would always lose this one. The things that had left them would never come back, and the people they were had passed on.

Sirius stood up too, and carefully he wrapped his arms around Remus’s waist, forehead against his shoulder blade. He could feel a deep sigh leaving Remus’s lungs under his hands. Defeat. Or maybe, maybe acceptance.

“It won’t go away. But I can help you carry it. I can _try_ , Remus. You have to let me try.”

Remus leaned back against Sirius’s chest and wrapped his fingers around his own.

“You’re not going anywhere, are you?”

“Afraid not.”

“You really are incredibly insufferable.” Remus laughed.

“I suppose that– some things, though they are rare, truly never change.”

Remus turned his head and kissed his jaw before whispering an I love you. Above them, the moon had reached her highest point in the sky. Almost full, not quite there yet. Maybe Sirius would ask to join him in his abandoned town. Maybe Remus would let him. And they could run together again and start, at their own pace, to build something new out of the ruins.

**IX.**

(The next day he apologized to Molly, and she patted his cheek and hugged him tightly and it reminded him of Mrs. Potter. A memory, a _stay as long as you want_ and he wondered if maybe finally the good memories would start to outnumber the bad ones again.)

**X.**

In the end, he didn’t need to ask to come with Remus. He had grabbed Sirius’s hand late at night when the house had gone to sleep and he’d told him, almost like a confession, that the wolf missed the dog and that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, for it to have a friend again. That it could be, at least a little, like the old days.

Ireland was beautiful, and the air was fresh and clean and when the wolf howled, Padfoot followed him into the endless stretch of woods. And it felt a little like healing, like in the pale light of the full moon, they had fixed something broken.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Brought to you by an overuse of italics, commas and emotions.


End file.
